


I Remember.

by atomicsupervillainess



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, I was feeling feelings, Post Jemma's return, Post Season 2, Sadness and Longing, all of the feels, angst like whoa, hope that's your bag, photos and memories, tumblr repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:10:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4547988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomicsupervillainess/pseuds/atomicsupervillainess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Jemma wished she was back in the rock.</p><p>Sometimes, she wished for that cool, unfeeling numbness to wash over her.</p><p>She wished for the winter. For hypothermia, so she couldn’t feel her toes. Or her fingers. Or the cold sting of tears in her eyes, or the way her ribs felt like a cage, boxing in her heart, which beat too hard, and too hot, which seared her from the inside out, and made her feel like everything was on fire, like no matter what happened, she was smoldering just beneath the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Remember.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost from my tumblr, and sort of a sorry for my Guns of Brixton fans - it's been a little bit, but I've written myself into a bit of a corner, so have some sad drabble to tide you over in the meantime?

Sometimes, Jemma wished she was back in the rock.

Sometimes, she wished for that cool, unfeeling numbness to wash over her.

She wished for the winter. For hypothermia, so she couldn’t feel her toes. Or her fingers. Or the cold sting of tears in her eyes, or the way her ribs felt like a cage, boxing in her heart, which beat too hard, and too hot, which seared her from the inside out, and made her feel like everything was on fire, like no matter what happened, she was smoldering just beneath the surface.

She wished for that blissful nothing. Because learning to feel again hurt too much.

She’d taken to sleeping on the fire escape, where the wind tore around her, drowning out the sounds of her breathing and the sounds of the city around her. It cooled her skin until gooseflesh rose.

He’d tried to bring her blankets, to keep her warm. He’d place them gently on her when she slept. His fingers were tender and they reminded her of the ghostly touches she imagined, fossilized and stilled in the rock, and it cracked fissures inside her each time the soft pressure disappeared. She’d kick off the blankets then, begging for the glacial freeze to stop the slow trickle of feeling that began to well in the bottom of her soul.

The thaw prickled, though. And with every ice-age comes the melt.

“I remember,” She murmured once. He’d been looking at a picture of them. It was tattered around the edges, and much folded. They were smiling. She remembered smiling. She’d tried it once or twice at the beginning, but it felt like she were doing it wrong - like the muscles were atrophied and dead and that was when she’d realized. 

Like a mosquito caught in amber, she’d been fossilized. Turned to glass. The state of her soul had shifted, somehow, and she’d forgotten to remember. Forgotten to remember the way his eyes shone lapis when he looked up at her, the warm drag of his fingers, and how her blood sang in her veins when he stood too close.

“I remember,” she repeated, when he looked up at her, those depthless blue eyes, his mouth opening and closing without sound. “I remember the way you smelled.”

What did that expression mean? Why did his eyes suddenly get glassy? Something itched inside her. some muscle, long dormant, maybe. Stretching painfully in disuse. He looked…Sad? Or was it hopeful?

Jemma chose to ignore it. The longer she lingered on the tightness around his eyes, or the tremble at his bottom lip, the more her chest squeezed in on itself and the more she forgot to breathe. She had to breathe here, in this state. She could no longer be still.

Every movement ached deep and long, and sang across her glacial bones.

“I remember….You smelled like solder and cologne, and you’d put it on for Skye - to impress her. But I remember she didn’t notice at all. But I did. And I remember your breathe smelled like chocolate.”

Every word was liquid. Every inhale struck a deep channel, and every exhale filled it with more words, words that burned like fire, like something molten, something like a monsoon that wore away at the sheets of ice that carefully encased the mosquito-soul that buzzed under the surface, that - she was suddenly discovering - still lived, still thrummed with blood.

“I remember. I remember throwing up in your car. And I remember showing up at your house. And I remember hurting you so bad when I left for those months. I didn’t mean to. But I remember. I do.”

Jemma strode forward, her fingers brushing along the warped edge of the photo. “I remember how I met your mom. And I remember what you do on Christmas.”

her fingers, clumsy from disuse, took the photo from him. “I remember how I loved you.”

She sat like a stone. To Fitz, she was stillness entire, something strange and otherworldly, stiff and hard as gemstones, her skin pale and thin as glass.

He turned away, fearing the worst.

He couldn’t see how she vibrated with each word, how she felt every inhale like a bellows at a flame, couldn’t see how the flesh at her throat tinged to a soft and delicate new pink, as if the cells of her skin had never felt the flush of emotion before.

“I think that I still do. I’m trying to remember how to do it right.”


End file.
